


not cruel, only truthful

by echelons



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Barbara Gordon is Oracle, Cassandra Cain is Batgirl, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 01:22:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18378062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/echelons/pseuds/echelons
Summary: Batgirl, coming home.





	not cruel, only truthful

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Sylvia Plath's poem "Mirror."

Batgirl perched carefully on the roof of the old municipal building, absent-mindedly pulling the thorns off the rose she held in her hands. It was nearing dawn, and across the street, the sky around the edges of the Gotham Clocktower was a soft grey. The face of the clock itself was illuminated, as it was each night, a shining golden beacon. It looked like a reflection of the moon, or of the signal that often pressed up against the Gotham night sky. Below, the streets were deserted, even the criminals having decided to turn in for the night. In the distance, she could hear a truck beeping and a few stray cars rushing by, but the city was as close to truly quiet as it ever was, and its people were as close to truly safe as they ever were.

She closed the distance to the Clocktower easily, long practice letting her find the footholds that would make her entrance to the building as easy as possible. The window she left through was at the end of the hall, and some nights, she would come back to find it shut and locked, Barbara’s way of saying _Come in through the main room, I need to talk to you._ Tonight, however, it was still open, and Batgirl was free to slip down the hall into her own bathroom.

She washed her face thoroughly, scrubbing off the face paint to give both herself and Barbara some room for deniability. Remembering Barbara’s comment about the potential damage to her skin, she peered at her face in the mirror and then flinched. She was used to seeing herself in reflection the way she saw everyone else, with intent and movement embedded in the lines of her face and body. Now that she had lost the ability to see, her reflection felt unreal, empty. As if some vital part of herself was missing, refusing to be contained in the image in the glass. She looked away quickly.

After she’d changed into an outfit with significantly less blood and grime on it, Batgirl headed down the hall to the main room. Barbara was speaking, she heard as she approached, and Batgirl assumed she was on the comms with Black Canary. However, as she reached the doorway, Barbara said her name, and Batgirl froze.

“Batgirl’s gone out again,” Barbara was saying. “He told her not to, but-” There was silence as the person on the other end of the line said something, and then Barbara nodded. “Yeah. We’ve all been there.”

In the doorway, Batgirl was still as a statue, her fingers curling around the rose she’d had earlier, now stripped of all its defenses.

“I don’t think she _wants_ to,” Barbara sighed. “I think she needs to. Just like you, and me, and him. She reminds me a lot of him, actually.” Another moment of silence, then another sigh. “I know. Yeah, I know that. But she’s not- she’s different, and we have to trust her.”

A screen in the corner of the room lit up, glowing green. Barbara turned towards it, and as she did so, she caught sight of Batgirl in the doorway. She raised an eyebrow. “I should go,” she said into her mouthpiece. “Good night, Dick.”

She wheeled over to the screen and started typing, the keys clacking over the hum of the computer banks. “Did you have a good night?” She asked, her back to Batgirl again, her focus on the screen in front of her.

Batgirl crossed the room and tapped Barbara on the shoulder. Her fingers stilled on the keys, and when she turned, Batgirl could see herself reflected in the lenses of Barbara’s glasses, illuminated by the light of the computer screen. She reached out and, very gently, pushed the rose into place behind Barbara’s ear. There were no thorns left to cause issue, so the flower could be close against the skin without hurting her. “For you,” Batgirl said.

Barbara, confused, reached up a hand to touch it. “Thank you.”

Batgirl moved to go sit on the windowsill, the window up and the night air open at her back. “I heard you,” she said, looking away, feeling the wind ruffle along the edges of her hair. “I was listening.”

“I’m sorry,” Barbara said. “I shouldn’t talk about you; it’s rude.”

“You said I was like him.”

“I said you were like all of us.” She typed furiously for a moment, the sound filling the empty space between them, and then she said, “But yes, you are like him.”

A train whistle blew in the distance. Batgirl imagined the train, a great, dark, construct hurtling through the night, set in its course, unstoppable by most measures. Most measures, but not all. She asked, “Is that good? To be like him?”

Barbara laughed, short and humorless. “If you figure that one out, let us know.”

Batgirl turned and looked out at the brightening sky, watching as dawn crept its way up over the city of Gotham. When the sun burst over the horizon, the Wayne Enterprises skyscraper, all glass, sparkled like a million diamonds, and in the distance by the docks, the water shimmered, the light reflected back in dazzling splendor. Then, like a bat at the break of dawn, she yawned and stretched and headed home to roost.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos always appreciated.


End file.
